The Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday that the Russian and Syrian military have killed terrorists in the search area of the downed Russian Su-24 plane.

RT reports: “The moment our pilot was in safety the area was heavily bombed by the Russian Air Force and shelled by Syrian government forces artillery,” ministry spokesman General-Major Igor Konashenkov told a media briefing.

He stressed that terrorists and other “mysterious groups” were killed in the assault.

The Russian Air Force has conducted 134 sorties in the past three days hitting 449 targets in the Syrian provinces of Aleppo, Damascus, Idlib, Latakia, Hama, Homs, Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, according to the spokesman.

All planes have safely returned to base.

Konashenkov also added that the Turkish General Staff had denied Russia access to any materials related to the downing of the Russian Su-24 jet by a Turkish F-16 on Monday, adding that they did not release any recording of the radio communications between the pilots.

“In this case this is just more proof that the audio recording of communication between the Turkish pilots and our crew published by several media outlets is a regular fake.”